Principal, Law Offices of David Balto and Health Policy Program, New America Foundation
David Balto is one of the leading experts on healthcare competition and regulation and is an antitrust attorney with over a quarter century of experience in both the private and public sectors. He is a prolific writer and speaker on antitrust, consumer protection, and health care policy.
Mr. Balto has over 15 years of government antitrust experience as a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and in several senior level positions at the Federal Trade Commission during the Clinton Administration, including Policy Director of the Bureau of Competition (1998-2001) and attorney advisor to Chairman Robert Pitofsky (1995-1997). In these positions, he was a senior advisor in all aspects of the FTC's merger and non-merger enforcement program, helping to litigate the challenges to the Staples/Office Depot, Drug Wholesalers, and Heinz/Beechnut mergers.
Mr. Balto also helped guide many of the FTC's seminal pharmaceutical and healthcare enforcement efforts, identifying and helping litigate major cases such as the challenges to patent settlement agreements, hospital mergers, and other exclusionary conduct. He was an advisor in many of the FTC's pharmaceutical merger enforcement cases, including Glaxo/Smithkline, Merck/Medco, Lilly/PCS and Ciba/Sandoz, and was instrumental in bringing some of the first enforcement actions against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). He was also an author of the 1996 DOJ/FTC healthcare antitrust enforcement guidelines, and served as a liaison on competition issues to the Food and Drug Administration and Congress, advising several Committees on pharmaceutical competition and Hatch-Waxman reform.
Since his transition to private practice, Balto has testified before Congress and state legislatures numerous times on healthcare competition issues and the competitive concerns in health insurance and pharmacy benefit management markets. He has authored studies on health care concentration (sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and healthcare transparency. He frequently represents hospitals, pharmacies and other healthcare providers in antitrust matters before the DOJ and the FTC.
Mr. Balto received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota, and his J.D. from the Northeastern University School of Law.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
John K. Bush is a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. His chambers are in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to joining the court, Judge Bush was a partner in the Louisville office of Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP, where he also was co-chair of the firm’s litigation department. He began his legal practice in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
Judge Bush served as a law clerk for Judge J. Smith Henley of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He was graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 1986, and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law
With his work in regulatory takings and other aspects of property law, professor of law Steven Eagle plays an important role in the ongoing dialogue among American legal scholars, lawyers, and judges on the proper interpretation of property rights in the Constitution. He is the author of a leading property treatise and scholarly and popular articles and teaches in programs for judges and the practicing bar.
Professor Eagle came to George Mason in 1987 and also has taught at the law schools of Vanderbilt University, the University of Toledo, and Pace University. He earned his B.B.A. from the City College of New York (1965) and his J.D. from Yale Law School (1970). Professor Eagle teaches the first-year course, Property, Land Use Planning, and an advanced constitutional law seminar on property rights.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge O’Scannlain was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan on September 26, 1986. He received a J.D. degree in 1963 from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in 1957 from St. John’s University. He also earned the LL.M. (Judicial Process) degree at University of Virginia Law School in 1992. He was awarded the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Notre Dame in 2002, the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by Lewis & Clark College in 2003 and the LL.D. (honoris causa) degree by the University of Portland in 2011.
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge O’Scannlain has participated in over 6,000 federal cases and has written hundreds of published opinions on a broad range of subjects including constitutional law, international law, securities law, administrative law, and criminal law. He hears appeals in San Francisco (court headquarters), as well as in Los Angeles (Pasadena), Portland, Seattle, Anchorage and Honolulu. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge O'Scannlain to the Federal Judicial Center's Advisory Committee on Appellate Judge Education. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the International Judicial Relations Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference and subsequently appointed him Chairman in 2010.
President George W. Bush appointed Judge O’Scannlain to the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI conferred the Order of Saint Gregory the Great on Judge and Mrs. O’Scannlain in 2007.
Judge O’Scannlain’s professional interests also include judicial administration and reform, and continuing legal education. Judge O’Scannlain is former Chair of the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association and has previously chaired the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference, its Committee on Appellate Practice, and its 9th Appellate Practice Institute. He has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on several occasions, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, and the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals on the subject of court reorganization. In addition to serving as a faculty member at numerous federal appellate practice seminars for judges and attorneys, including New York University Law School’s Institute for Judicial Administration, Judge O’Scannlain is an Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School where he teaches a seminar on the Supreme Court. He has served as a Moot Court Judge at distinguished law schools across the United States including Harvard, Yale Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley Law), Virginia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Fordham, Alabama, University of Southern California, King Hall (U.C. Davis) and Loyola Marymount University and in China at Xiamen and Renmin Universities.
Between graduation from Harvard and investiture as a federal judge, Judge O’Scannlain was primarily engaged in private law practice. Between 1969 and 1974, he was consecutively the Deputy Attorney General of Oregon, the Public Utility Commissioner of Oregon, and Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1978 as a Major after 23 years Reserve and National Guard service, including four years as an enlisted man.
A first generation Irish-American son of immigrant parents from Sligo and Derry, Judge O’Scannlain is married to the former Maura Nolan and has eight children: Sean, Jane, Brendan, Kevin, Megan, Christopher, Anne, and Kate, and nineteen grandchildren. His chambers are in the Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
General Counsel, University of Kentucky & Former Solicitor General of Virginia, University of Kentucky
William E. Thro, the General Counsel of the University of Kentucky, is an accomplished university attorney, appellate advocate, and legal scholar.
As the Chief Legal Officer for the University of Kentucky, he provides proactive strategic advice on critical legal and policy issues confronting a public flagship land grant research university with an integrated academic medical center and a high profile athletics program. Before assuming his present position in 2012, he spent more than twenty years representing public universities including eight years as the first in-house counsel at Christopher Newport University.
As Solicitor General of Virginia for four years, he was responsible for the Virginia State Government’s U.S. Supreme Court litigation (except capital cases) as well as lower court appeals involving the constitutionality of statutes or politically sensitive issues. He argued two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous cases in the lower appellate courts. He co-authored seven U.S. Court merits briefs, eleven U.S. Supreme Court amicus briefs, and more than fifty briefs at the petition stage. He received two Best Brief Awards from the National Association of Attorneys General.
As a legal scholar, he focuses on constitutional law in educational contexts. He has more than sixty publications in law reviews or peer reviewed journals as well as numerous monographs, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. In recognition of his scholarly work, he received Stetson University’s Kaplin Award for Excellence in Higher Education Law & Policy Scholarship (2014) and became a Fellow of both the National Education Finance Conference (2012) and the National Association of College and University Attorneys (2007).
He has served as President of the Education Law Association, Chair of the Virginia Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Section, Board Chair for a local Red Cross Chapter, on the Boards of both the National Association of College & University Attorneys and the National Education Finance Academy, and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
A native of Kentucky, he received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Hanover College. In addition to receiving the Crowe Citation as the outstanding male in his class, he was the first Hanover student to become a Harry S. Truman Scholar. He earned a graduate degree with honours from the University of Melbourne while attending as a Rotary Foundation International Ambassadorial Scholar. His law degree is from the University of Virginia where he was a published member of the VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW and research assistant to constitutional law professor A.E. Dick Howard. He began his legal career as a judicial clerk to the late Judge Ronald E. Meredith of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in Louisville.
He is married to the Rev. Dr. Julie Urback Thro and has two children in college (Sandra, Will) and one in high school (Noah).
Warren Belmar has served as the Deputy General Counsel for Energy Policy since June, 2006. He is responsible for coordinating the activities and functions assigned to the Assistant General Counsel for Legislation and Regulatory Law, the Assistant General Counsel for Fossil Energy and Energy Efficiency, the Assistant General Counsel for Regulatory Interventions and Power Marketing, and the Assistant General Counsel for General Law. In this role, he acts as principal legal advisor, on behalf of the General Counsel, to the Secretary and senior DOE officials within assigned functional areas, and performs other tasks within and outside of functional responsibility as determined by the General Counsel.
Prior to becoming Deputy General Counsel for Energy Policy, Mr. Belmar’s legal career has been spent in private practice in Washington, D.C., primarily with the law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP, from which he retired in 1999 after 22 years as a partner. In the years immediately prior to joining DOE, Mr. Belmar served as Managing Partner of Capitol Counsel Group, LLC, and as a partner with the law firm of Balch & Bingham LLP. His practice primarily involved providing counsel to clients in the financial services and energy sectors, representing clients in litigation in the Federal courts and before various federal and state departments and agencies, and before the U. S. Congress.
Mr. Belmar received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Brooklyn College in 1963, and his law degree with honors from Columbia Law School in 1966. He served as Court law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and as an attorney with the Office of Legal Counsel of the U. S. Department of Justice. He is a former Chair of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association, a former Chair of the Judicial Review Committee of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a former Senior Counsel of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, and a Life Member of American Law Institute.
B.A. Brooklyn College, 1963
J.D. Columbia Law School, 1966
Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
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